Numbers
by boswellonthestreet
Summary: The Storybrooke Public Library is far from ready to be reopened—so Gold figures the newly-appointed librarian could use a hand. Rumbelle, oneshot, post-2x04!


**Title:** Numbers

**Author:** boswellonthestreet

**Rating:** K+

**Pairing:** Rumbelle (FOREVERRRRRS)

**Timeline:** post-S2E04 ("The Crocodile")

**Disclaimer:** Once is not mine; it is the property of the fabulous (but sadistic) Kitswitz. C'MON GUYS CAN'T YOU GIVE US AN UNINTERRUPTED HAMBURGER DATE LIKE, ONE TIME

**Summary:** The Storybrooke Public Library is far from ready to be reopened—so Gold figures the newly-appointed librarian could use a hand. Rumbelle, oneshot, post-2x04!

* * *

The bell hanging over the door jingles merrily as Gold walks into the darkened library. He expected to see her behind the counter, or among the shelves—but she is in neither of those places, and he is beginning to think this was probably a mistake, when he hears her shout "In here!" from the next room.

Hesitating, he peers around the doorjamb into the children's area. Teetering waist-high stacks of books are everywhere, with no apparent rhyme or reason—like someone had been commissioned for an urban planning job and completed it while intoxicated—on the miniature tables and chairs and all over the floor, blocking any possible path into the room.

And there she is. Sitting cross-legged in the center of the floor, curls tumbling over her cheek, outline set alight by the sun coming through the window. She is going methodically through one of the book piles, wiping down each colorfully illustrated dust jacket with a scrap of cloth. Calm in the midst of all this haphazardness.

_Eye of the storm, _he thinks without thinking, and lightly clears his throat.

Blowing her hair out of her face, she straightens up. "Sorry about the mess, I—" And then she sees who is standing in the doorway, and she stops.

He takes a deep breath. "Hey," he murmurs, smiling tentatively.

And something in his chest expands as she smiles back.

"Sorry about the mess," Belle says again, struggling to her feet. "I just moved the shelves around, and I've been trying to sort these out all morning, but I kind of underestimated the space." She leans on the corner of the shelf with one hand, and flings out the other toward him. "Can you get in?"

Gold tries edging his way around what looks like L. Frank Baum's entire bibliography, but as he lifts his cane, he accidentally knocks the edge of one volume and sends the whole thing crashing to the floor with multiple _thuds. _

"Damn. I'm so sorry," he starts to say, but she just laughs and kicks away three more stacks to clear a path between them. "I think I've figured out the numbers," Belle says excitedly, once they're standing face to face.

"The numbers? Ah. The Dewey Decimal system, I take it."

"Oh, is _that _what they're called? It's _amazing!_ Without it I'm sure I'd be a lot worse off than I am now." She makes a wide gesture with her hands, her intense blue eyes sparkling. "On Monday I started with the reference books and encyclopedias in the main room, and then when I finished those, I thought I'd do the children's books for a change of pace."

Gold runs a finger across the top of the nearest bookshelf, and frowns critically at it when it comes away black. "Don't tell me you've been _living_ here."

"Oh. No." She grins, pulling off her hair tie and readjusting her ponytail. "Although I might as well be. I'll be eating lunch, or brushing my teeth, and all I'll be thinking about is how much longer I have to wait before I can be back here."

Wiping the dust off with his handkerchief, Gold glances around the rest of the room. All the bookshelves resemble cubbyholes more than actual shelves, and come up to no higher than his shoulder. He notes that where they were once arranged in rigid rows, like all the other shelves in the library, Belle has thoughtfully pushed them together to create one giant semicircle along the wall.

The walls are a faded, patchy robin's egg blue, and a scuffed wooden railing frames an elevated platform on one side. Spread out on the platform are a tattered rug and a few throw pillows that look as though moths have had several meals out of them—items he recalls having seen in the lobby of Granny's bed and breakfast several months ago, before they were replaced. Clearly Belle's worked to make this a safe, cozy kind of place, one the schoolchildren will no doubt be flocking to once it's fixed up.

It takes him a moment to realize she's been talking, and he's startled to find it's because he's been mentally calculating the cost of new rugs and cushions, and child-sized tables and chairs. Perhaps even beanbags.

"...and there were these lovely paper cutouts on the walls, or, well, they used to be lovely, because most of them were crumbling and some of the others looked like something had been eating them. So I had to throw them out." Belle steps back to get a better look at the wall opposite. "Now I'm thinking I'd better get a load of colored paper and make some new ones. Fairies, mermaids, grizzly bears... Or should I just _paint_ the walls?" She gasps as something occurs to her. "And the ceiling! I could do constellations!"

Gold laughs softly. "You've really taken to the place," he comments, while adding a set of paint cans and brushes to the list in his head.

"I _love_ it. It's the best gift I've ever gotten," she replies earnestly. "I can't thank you enough."

He shakes his head. "It was always yours." Their eyes meet, and the expression on Belle's face softens into something more pensive, and for a moment everything is perfect and quiet and tender.

Then Gold breaks the silence abruptly by sneezing into his handkerchief, and he feels like whacking himself over the head with his own cane.

"Oh no, sorry about that! I've been dusting the books, and I forgot to open a window." Belle hops over a stack of paperbacks to maneuver the window latch and push it outwards. "Apart from the dust, most of them are actually in surprisingly good condition, but there are some yellowing ones that have rather stubborn stains." She laughs sheepishly as she turns back to him. "Normally I'd look for a book on how to clean books, but, uh, I wouldn't be able to find it in this mess."

A crooked smile finds its way onto his lips, as he tucks his handkerchief back into his pocket. "Sandpaper."

Belle looks surprised. "Really?"

"Really. And a good pencil eraser. I have both back at the shop; can you wait ten minutes?"

"Oh, no, I—" she begins, but he cuts her off by lifting his hand. "Belle, please. It's no trouble." He reaches out and ruffles her hair awkwardly. "I'll be back shortly."

And he's out the door before she can protest any further. There is a sudden chill in the air; he feels it piercing his lungs with every breath, and draws his coat more tightly around himself as he strides blindly down the sidewalk.

At first, he made it a point not to go and see her. It wouldn't be fair. She _has _asked him out for lunch, sort of, but that date hasn't been set in stone yet. And clearly she deserves some space, after...after everything.

So Gold struck a deal with himself. He gave himself one week—one week to stay away. One week to let her calm down, settle in, find her own feet. It was agony, stopping himself from just turning right instead of left on his usual route back home, but he forced himself to hold his emotions in check.

In that one week, he had to relearn what it was to be alone. What it felt like to have the days bleed into one another without incident, without light. What it was like to come home to a big house with hopelessly vacant rooms, to clatter dishes more loudly in the sink and leave the hallway light on all night, just to bring the walls in a little closer.

To _count,_ for god's sake, the hours—_one hundred and sixty-six, one hundred and sixty-five, one hundred and sixty-four_—left until he can see her face again.

And now, he reflects, as he unlocks the shop door and rummages through his cabinet for a paper bag, he's relearning how to spend time with her. She's not asking to be in his world anymore—he's asking to be in hers. He's standing on the very threshold of it, seeing the space she's created for herself, afraid to cross into it for fear he will destroy it.

But if he can't open the door yet, he can at least slip a sheet of sandpaper under it.

The light in the lobby is on when he returns, and his heartbeat quickens when he sees that Belle is perched on the checkout counter, apparently having chosen to wait for him rather than continue working on her own. Her nose is buried in the last few pages of a leather-bound book, and she is swinging her feet, beating her heels lightly against the side of the counter.

"Happy ending?" Gold inquires casually.

Grinning, Belle shuts the book and slides off the counter. "Hardly. They both die in the end. I still love it, though."

He holds the paper bag out, offering it palm up. "I also brought some acid-free glue, in case there are any torn books that need repair."

"Thank you. Um—" She stretches out a hand as if to take it, then hesitates. "Could you show me?" And before Gold quite knows what is happening, they are scrunched up side-by-side at one of the tiny tables in the children's room, and she is sliding a yellowed copy of _Winnie the Pooh _over to him.

"It's not going to turn it white again, but it gets out the worst of the stains," Gold says, picking up the scissors and snipping off a corner of sandpaper. He swipes it deftly over the top of the book's pages. "Like this, see? Just in one direction. Don't scrub back and forth, you'll wear the pages down."

Then he glances sideways, and sees the look on her face. And though he has never experienced the holiday they call Christmas in this world, he has a feeling that this is what it's like.

"But it's like _magic,"_ Belle exclaims, stroking the now-smooth edge of the book with a fingertip.

It is considerably difficult to look dignified when your knees are level with your shoulders, but Gold tries anyway. "Hardly." He slides the book and the sandpaper back to her. "Your turn, my dear."

And five minutes later, when she has sanded all the sides and used the eraser to clean the dust and dried glue off the cover, she looks as though she is going to explode out of her little plastic chair with joy.

Then Belle sighs, deflating a little. "I guess...I'd better get back to work," she says slowly.

"I thought this _was _work."

"Yeah, but—there are books I just took out of storage that need sorting in the main room, and I promised Ruby I'd be back for lunch."

"Oh." And then before he even knows what is coming out of his mouth, he finds himself saying, "If you need an extra hand...I could stay for a while. Help you clean up, move things around. But only if you want me to," he adds quickly.

Belle swallows visibly. "Are, are you sure about that?"

His jaw tightens unconsciously. Of course she doesn't want him to. Of course it's too soon. _You fool._ "You're right. I'm sorry, this is your business, not mine—"

"No! No, it's not that at all! It's only—I thought, because of your, um," she falters, "your, um, condition, that you...might not..."

Softening, he stands up from his chair, using his cane as leverage. "Sweetheart, my leg doesn't bother me as badly as that. And I can carry as many books in one hand as anyone else can in two. Skill you inevitably pick up if you've rearranged a pawn shop every day for twenty-eight years."

Offering one hand to Belle to help her up, he slides the other underneath the nearest stack of books and scoops it into the crook of his arm. "See?" Cracking a smile, she accepts the hand and nods.

And so, as they work out a system—he'll take the 100 to 400s on the left side, she the 500 to 900s on the right (except for the 800s, Literature, which go on the counter for now)—Gold makes a new deal with himself, to avoid overstaying his welcome. He'll leave before lunch. He _will,_ even if it means having to call the sheriff and asking him to drag him bodily out the door.

So that gives him—he checks his watch discreetly—two and a half hours. One hundred and fifty minutes.

No—one hundred and forty-nine.

"Yours, I think," Gold says quietly, passing her a tattered copy of _The Origin of Species._

Eventually they fall into a steady rhythm, passing books that are on the wrong side of the room back and forth. At first they punctuate the silence with small words—"Yours," "Another one," "Here you go." But then they find it is easier, more natural, even, to say nothing. So they do.

And all the while the clock ticks. _One hundred and one. One hundred. Ninety-nine._

It's strange when he remembers the castle days. _Eighty-three. _Back when she used to do all the chores, and he just sat back in his chair and watched her every move, or spun or tinkered with vials of something to make it _seem _like he wasn't watching her every move. _Seventy-seven. Seventy-six. _

But now they're working as equals, working together so well they don't even have to talk—and how strange and wonderful it is.

He was so close to losing her. And the only reason he is standing here is because of her kindness.

Is he really here because he wants to help her? Or is he being selfish, the way he always was?

He senses that Belle is no longer moving between the rows, and glances to the right. It takes a while before he spots her—she is leaning against one of the shelves, flipping through a slim volume of Rilke's letters.

"Belle," he chides softly. _Fifty-five._

"Hmm?" She doesn't move.

"We're supposed to be fixing...not reading."

Her brow creases slightly, and her eyes continue to travel down the page for a moment longer—_fifty-four, fifty-three_—before she stops suddenly and looks up. "Sorry, what did you say?"

He throws up his hands. "Well, it's no _wonder_ you're taking so long to fix the place up! You read more than you put away!"

"Old habits," she says defensively, smacking him lightly on the shoulder with a hardbound copy of _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. _Given that, the smack hurts more than it should, but he consciously doesn't reach up to massage the spot in case she grows concerned.

"I never got to ask you." Belle sounds shy all of a sudden. "What's your favorite book?"

"Mine?" He wedges _The Two Towers _into its proper place, between _The Fellowship of the Ring _and _The Return of the King. _"What makes you think I have one?"

"Oh, come on. Give me a little credit. I _noticed _the books at your house. All the spines were pretty well-creased, so...I didn't think they were there just for decoration."

"Are you talking about the books back in the castle? Because those really _were_ there just for decoration."

"Rumple..."

"What? I thought the gold-leaf added class."

"_Rumple."_

"Oh, all right." He grumbles under his breath a little before saying in a low voice, _"Les Miserables."_

Belle looks absolutely delighted at this, and he immediately becomes very intent on arranging the five different editions of _War and Peace _on the shelf from oldest to newest. _"Les Miserables?"_ she repeats. "As in, 'laughter is sunshine,' 'to love or have loved, that is enough'? _That_ Les Miserables?"

"No need to shout it from the rooftops. And your summary is sorely lacking in that it completely omits the concept of the antihero, and the tragedy of the French Revolution," Gold grouches, feeling the heat creep into his face. She laughs. "And yours?" he adds after a moment, ashamed when he realizes _he_ never thought to ask before, either.

"Mine is a children's book, actually. About a prince who is under a disguise spell, and a princess who gets into a lot of daring swordfights."

"Ah, so you're into _realistic_ fiction," he comments dryly, and this time they both laugh.

And Gold realizes vaguely that he has stopped counting.

* * *

_(And then they get burgers and nothing interrupts them NOTHING and he helps her decorate the walls and they open the library and live happily ever after THE END PLEASE)_

_I wrote this back in September 2013 and then I just...forgot to post it hahaha sry_

_And I really wanted books to come into the picture here, because I think the show hasn't yet really talked about how important books are to Belle, and also just because BOOKS_


End file.
